The Mouth: Sydney’s most feared reviewer uncovers a meal they are finally surprised by at CBD institution Pendolino

Sydney’s most feared reviewer — The Mouth — was gobsmacked to find a meal that finally surprised him at CBD institution, The Restaurant.

A close friend of this column, let’s call him Don, grew up overseas as the son of one of the great expense account bandits of his era.

To hear Don tell it, his dad drew a handsome salary but almost never had to put his had in his pocket for anything more than rent and household groceries because in those flush times the game was to “expense” everything.

Thirty seconds business talk over drinks or dinner was apparently enough to make any receipt reimbursable, and so Don grew up well-schooled in whatever widget the family was in the business of making.

Anyway, Don summoned The Mouth to lunch recently in the CBD to discuss all the troubles in the world (these troubles being his generation’s somewhat less lucrative widgets).

And so we found ourselves creaking up the back stairs of the Strand to Pendolino, what Don called “an old-school Italian power restaurant”. It was also named one of NSW’s best in the recent delicious. 100 list. 

Pendolino restaurant.

Like Marcel Proust famously chomping his bikkie and being transported back to his childhood, Don said that this was the sort of place he used to go all the time as a lad, tagging along with his father on various adventures to restaurants that always seemed to be named something like “Dal Toscano”.

And so we went more or less the proverbial whole hog – or should we say maiale.

Pendolino’s ravioli inspired a philosophical question for The Mouth.

Perfect cold weather dish: slow braised beef atop perfect polenta. Picture: Supplied

A plate of startlingly delicate snacks arrived with lots of little crisps topped with yummy things (do not ask us to remember) as well as a cooling soup (a “vellutata,” if you don’t mind) and, the highlight, a little deep fried olive stuffed with pork and veal.

We followed this with a kingfish tartare – which has really become to Sydney what Hainanese chicken rice is to Singapore – and immediately regretted we had not gone with Don’s beef carpaccio topped with gloriously stinky testun di Barolo cheese.

Ravioli followed, as did a great debate over whether the filled pasta parcels could be considered a dumpling or a closed sandwich.

This is actually a more philosophical question than you might appreciate, especially when you’re into your second bottle of Barolo.

But for someone who is rarely surprised by a dish, this column was delighted with a little number we have only encountered here called “pastissada” – something which Chef Google reveals is a Venetian dish, basically slow braised wonderfully tender Taree beef, unctuously rich on top of perfect polenta.

We are calling this the perfect dish for cold, rainy weather, which means Pendolino’s kitchen should be turning this out through at least 2024, when the eighth La Nina is forecast to finally break.